Matters of the Mental.

The storm in my mind...

Lovelies,

I've been drowning in my brain and pretty deep feelings lately.

Can you handle me?

All of me? I am genuinely asking. I sit alone all the time.

With only Jesus and my thoughts to keep me company.

I cry a lot because depression is heavy. I've always had a shadow, a dark storm cloud following me, just out of eyesight but always in my peripheral vision. My silent companions, slinking ever closer.

They whisper to me, reminding me of my traumas, fears, and failures.

I drown them out, smile, kiki, and help others. I always do this; otherwise, my companions pounce like a cat on a mouse, like the dark in the night sky. No one sees my true suffering, so I get accused of faking for attention regularly.

I have always felt that diving head-first into others, helping them, supporting them, loving them in ways they didn't know was possible for them, helps me forget about my problematic life and way of thinking. I often get told by others, "They not the friend who needs to come see you, or talk to you every day, but once we come back together, it's like nothing has changed!"

But it has changed for me! It is that deep for me! My brain likes routine and repetition.

If we talk everyday or a few times a day and then the times we text, or video call dwindle til you've ghosted me altogether, I can't stand for that. It physically hurts me when people deviate from the plan, especially without reason or a heads up. I go over every scenario, every detail, painstakingly trying to figure out what went wrong. Are you mad at me? Did I say the wrong thing?

Then my old friends, depression and anxiety, show up and wrap their gloomy arms around me, for an all-encompassing embrace that causes tears, spiraling, and crippling feelings of forever isolation.

"It's all my fault," they tell me. "No one will love me, not how I deserve," they whisper.

I am so easily triggered because of my life experiences. I never had positive people or role models around me throughout life. I didn't have people who had emotional intelligence, constructive criticism, or understanding, or who understood how to have healthy communication.

Friends? Not really, where have they been? Living their lives, probably haven't thought of me, or care to know where I am. Hell, most people don't even remember my name.

I have been abandoned again... Story of my life. More and more, I discover how different I am from everyone. How differently my mind works. I can't expect everyone to love me as I do them, or think about me the way I do them, or even be honest with me the way I would be with them.

Yet, I do, and it boggles my mind that people aren't more like me. Or that they think I am too much.

This has led to a life full of disappointment, supreme isolation, trust issues, feelings of never knowing unconditional love. Only my lifelong companions, the shadows and storm clouds following me since my earliest memories, are my only true constant in my life. Lord knows, they walk beside me on one side and the Lord on the other.

 I know I'm not loved. Not truly.

Sure, people have "Love" for me, they "care" for me in their way, so they say.

 Their mouths are fixed to say these falsehoods to me.

Everyone seems to love the idea of me. What would it be like to be in my circle, my heart, in my bed,

 but no one wants to know what it's really like, to take the good with the bad.

To see my bad days, where I can barely function, or the days I cry all day from C-PTSD, depression, or anxiety. To sit up with me in the hospital, to hear all the troubling things the doctor has to say.

They only love how I make them feel, the love and support they soak up from me.

Meanwhile, I am left drowning in the torrential downpour of sorrow, envy, despair, and negative energy being thrust onto me. Picking up others pieces. Soaking up all the bad and still smiling and holding up my world on my very tired back and shoulders. I hold everyone together with duct tape and super glue.

I am their backbone, their foundation! So at the end of it all, I am reduced to a gelatinous puddle, nothing left to hold myself up.

All while the world makes me feel like they only somewhat tolerate me.

I am too weird, too childish, quiet, and too different.

Their brand of "Love" never matches mine. Conditional "Love" does not equal Unconditional Love, so their brand doesn't match. I pour my everything into someone when I love them. I don't say it if I don't mean it.

Although it's never reciprocated by those around me. I don't believe words anyway. If your words don't match your actions, I will never trust you! My problem is that I am too forgiving and want to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. I never know when it's time to let go, time to move on.

But either way, it gets me into trouble. People take advantage of my love and care, and I seem to never learn. But it isn't in me to ignore anyone who needs me. I know what it's like to not know love, to go without a warm plate or bed to lie in, to not have your family to call. God will bless me, I truly believe it.

 So I try to be the best me for those around me.

The world wants to harden me and darken my heart and transform me into a jagged clone like the rest of society. Little do they know that with all the pressure, I won't buckle; I will become a diamond soon enough. I am precious and to be cherished. I want someone to hold on to me and never leave me, to truly see me, cherish me, low-key, high-key obsess over me in all the best ways possible. I want to feel like I'm the best thing to happen to someone, like the Lord answered their prayers and delivered me to their doorstep. I want the fairy tale type of Love.

I just crave healthy relationships. Healthy Love, Healthy Lifestyle. For someone like me, it seems like an impossible dream to attain. I am constantly misunderstood, ignored, and talked over, my accessibility needs are not met. I have to constantly mask even around my family. It's the little remarks and jabs about the way I look, how I have to adapt things to be able to do them, how I need mobility aids, or hearing aids to move and live independently and still try to help those that continuously dump on me whether I have the energy to do it or whether they deserve it or not.

I stay in my lane, I mind my business, and drink my water, but it's NEVER enough!

NEVER good enough.

The Devil is trying his hardest to get my attention, to bring me down. His minions are hard at work holding my name in their mouths, using their vicious tongues to spread doubt and lies about me.

I never understood how people could gossip about me and try to spread hate about me when no one knows me. It must be that I am close to something magnificent!

I learn more about myself each day, and through the seldom interactions I have with others.

I keep being told I am hard to love, and too needy, or clingy. That I need too much attention or my life is too depressing for others, so I need to silence myself and stop sharing, because no one cares.

I am wildly independent in everything I go through. I've been conditioned not to say when I am hurting or I need help. So grin and bear it, has become my motto now. I push through when I just want to ask someone to rub my feet and back. For once, to have someone see me struggling and not wait to ask if I need help, they just do it.

 When I just want to bury my face into someone's chest and just ugly face cry and let go of all this pain

 I carry every day, just for the moment. I can',t so I don't. I have a household to run, kids to raise.

 I have to be silent and resilient and strong and do it all myself, because my words carry no weight to those I am around. I'll be damned if I am constantly made to feel like I am begging for assistance.

So, being conditioned to the thought, that no one gives a damn about me, I feel utterly alone, and like I cannot be myself. I am always masking as to not upset others. I have an overwhelming sense of independence and need to help others because of this, and because I don't want anyone to ever feel alone and neglected like I do.

I need attention, yes, just like anyone. I have been isolated my whole life, so I genuinely get so happy when someone wants to be my friend or justbe around me, and genuinely devastated when people desert me.

 Me, clingy? Because I will wait all day to talk, see yo u, or text you? That you're the 1st person that I think of in the morning and the last before laying my head down at night? That I always want to be around you, hold you in my arms, and just breathe all of you in? Maybe.

I just thought that means I love you, in some capacity? I am affectionate and loving, I don't know how to be any other type of way.

And yes, I guess I am a little needy, I am disabled and need help. AND STOP TELLING ME, "Don't Say That, Don't Claim That!" Disabled is not a bad word; it doesn't mean I am claiming defeat. I am merely stating a fact. I am disabled, and there is nothing wrong with that. I can't separate that part of me, because it IS part of me!

So, can you handle me? All of me? Love me? After reading my works and getting to know a bit of me?

Have you sat back and had a true convo with yourself? Can you handle what you might discover?

We must learn to love ourselves and surround ourselves with others who truly love us.

Don't forget to take care of your mental health as well when trying to get your life together!

May is Mental Health Awareness month!

_Stay Lovely_